While warning about
China (item 2), Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen take credit for unleashing the
Arab Spring. The State Dept had been organizing dissidents and orienting
them to the use of social media: http://mailstar.net/nonviolence-State-link.html

{quote}In
2008, the Alliance of Youth Movements held its inaugural summit in New York
City. Attending this summitwas a combination of State Department staff,
Council on Foreign Relations members, former National Securitystaff,
Department of Homeland Security advisers, and a myriad of representatives
from American corporationsand mass media organizations including AT&T,
Google, Facebook, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and
MTV.{endquote}

Google will contribute to the surveillance state with
its Glasses product (item 5). Massive surveillance in combination with
savage inequality means elite control (item 6).

Schmidt and Cohen
warn of instability in China (item 3), implying that they support revolution
there. Yet they see no prospect of a revolt within the US against the
betrayal of the nation by the intertnationalist elite. If such a revolt
eventuates, eg in the wake of economic collapse, I don't believe that
surveillance could stop it.

Check your newer credit cards for the Wi-Fi Symbol on
it. You need to watch the video below to really know why I sent this to
you.

I read this about a couple weeks ago, and then checked my cards for
the little "Wi-Fi Signal Icon" on each one. I found none w/that signal on
them, but I was determined to watch for it when my cards came in on
renewals.

Well, yesterday I got my CHASE SLATE card AND THERE IT WAS
! My first time to see it. I'll not activate that card after seeing this. I
guess I'll go to the bank and see if I can replace it w/a non Wi-Fi (Radio
Frequency Card)....?

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is brutally clear: China is
the most dangerous superpower on Earth.

Corporate Intelligence
reviewed preliminary galleys of Schmidt’s new book, “The New Digital Age,”
(Random House) which debuts in April. And Schmidt’s views on China stand out
the strongest amid often predictable techno-utopian views of the
future.

Some of these views are both cliched and camera-ready . He
imagines that soon an “illiterate Maasai cattle herder in the Serengeti”
will use a smartphone to “inquire the day’s market prices and crowd-source
the whereabouts of any nearby predators.”

Other parts of the book are
a much darker take on how authoritarians, extremists and rogues of all
varieties are becoming just as empowered as that Maasai herdsman. And the
good guys, whoever they are, have yet to work out how to properly defend
themselves.

The new book is co-written by Jared Cohen, a 31-year old
former State Department big shot who now runs Google Ideas, the search
giant’s think tank.

The Schmidt and Cohen partnership has at least
one other impressive credit to its name. The two wrote a long essay,“The
Digital Disruption,” published in November 2010. In its opening paragraph,
it predicted that “governments will be caught off-guard when large numbers
of their citizens, armed with virtually nothing but cell phones, take part
in mini-rebellions that challenge their authority.”

A month later, a
wave of popular uprisings began across the Arab world. As the Egyptian
revolution kicked off in January 2011, Cohen, so the story goes, was not
only in Cairo: he shared dinner with Google executive and high-profile
activist Wael Ghonim just hours before he was snatched from the streets by
security forces.

With the Arab uprisings rolling onward, “The New Digital
Age” picks up where that previous essay left off, taking a big-picture view
on how everything from individual identities to corporate strategy,
terrorism and statecraft will change as information seeps ever deeper. And
in this all-Internet world, China, the book says again and again, is a
dangerous and menacing superpower.

China, Schmidt and Cohen write, is
“the world’s most active and enthusiastic filterer of information” as well
as “the most sophisticated and prolific” hacker of foreign companies. In a
world that is becoming increasingly digital, the willingness of China’s
government and state companies to use cyber crime gives the country an
economic and political edge, they say.

“The disparity between
American and Chinese firms and their tactics will put both the government
and the companies of the United States as a distinct disadvantage,” because
“the United States will not take the same path of digital corporate
espionage, as its laws are much stricter (and better enforced) and because
illicit competition violates the American sense of fair play,” they
claim.

“This is a difference in values as much as a legal
one.”

The U.S. is far from an angel, the book acknowledges. From
high-profile cases of cyber-espionage such as the Stuxnet virus that
targeted Iranian nuclear facilities, to exports of surveillance software and
technology to states with bad human rights records, there is plenty at home
to criticize.

And those criticisms will become louder and more
politically resonant, Schmidt and Cohen claim, as the distinctions between
states that support freedom online and those that suppress it become
clearer. The pair even speculate that the Internet could eventually fracture
into pieces, some controlled by an alliance of states that are relatively
tolerant and free, and others by groupings that want their citizens to take
part in a less rowdy and open online life. Companies doing business with the
latter could find themselves shunned from the former, the book
suggests.

In this roundabout way the pair come close, on occasion, to
suggesting western governments follow China’s lead and form closer
relationships between state policy and corporate activity.

Take the
equipment and software that comprises the Internet. Most of the world’s IT
systems were once based almost entirely on Western infrastructure, but as
Chinese firms get more competitive, that is changing, and not necessarily
for the better, they say:

In the future superpower supplier nations
will look to create their spheres of online influence around specific
protocols and products, so that their technologies form the backbone of a
particular society and their client states come to rely on certain critical
infrastructure that the superpower alone builds, services and
controls.

Chinese telecom equipment companies, rapidly gaining market
share around the world, are at the front lines of the expansion this sphere
of influence, they say: “Where Huawei gains market share, the influence and
reach of China grow as well”. And while western vendors like Cisco
Systems and Ericsson are not state controlled, the will likely become
closer to their governments in the future, Schmidt and Cohen
say:

There will come a time when their commercial and national
interests align and contrast with China — say, over the abuse of their
products by an authoritarian state — and they will coordinate their efforts
with their governments on both diplomatic and technical levels.

But
for all the advantages China gains from its approach to the Internet,
Schmidt and Cohen still seem to think its hollow political center is
unsustainable. “This mix of active citizens armed with technological devices
and tight government control is exceptionally volatile,” they write, warning
this could lead to “widespread instability.”

In the longer run, China
will see “some kind of revolution in the coming decades,” they
write.

We’ve been taking a look through
unreleased galleys of Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt‘s new book,
“The New Digital Age”, to be released this April. In our main post we looked
at how the book, co-written with Google Ideas chief Jared Cohen, had some
tough words to say about China and its history of internet censorship and
cyber espionage.

But there’s more! Aside from promising a future with
“integrated clothing machines (washing, drying, folding, pressing and
sorting) that keep an inventory of clean clothes and algorithmically suggest
outfits based on the user’s daily schedule,” and — drumroll — “haircuts that
will finally be automated and machine-precise,” the book share’s
Schmidt’s take many other hot-button online issues.

Here’s a lines we
thought were notable:

Anonymity: “Some governments will consider it too
risky to have thousands of anonymous, untraceable and unverified citizens —
“hidden people”; they’ll want to know who is associated with each online
account, and will require verification at a state level, in order to
exert control over the virtual world

Search engines: “Within search
results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher
than content without such verification, which will result in most users
naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining
anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”

The Next EU?: ”States like
Belarus, Eritrea, Zimbabwe and North Korea — authoritarian, with strong
personality cults and a pariah status elsewhere in the world — would have
little to lose by joining an autocratic cyber union, where censorship and
monitoring strategies and technologies could be shared.”

Tech
companies: “Thick skin will be a necessity for technology companies in the
coming years of the digital age, because they will find themselves beset by
public concerns over privacy, security and user protections…They’ll also
have to hire more lawyers. Litigation will always outpace genuine legal
reform, as any of the technology giants fighting perpetual legal battles
over intellectual property, patents, privacy and other issues would
attest”

Electronic conflict: ”It’s fair to say we’re already living in an
age of state-led cyber war, even if most of us aren’t aware of
it.”

Journalism: “The effect of having so many new actors involved,
connected through a range of online platforms into the great, diffuse media
system, is that major media outlets will report less and validate more….
In fact, the elite will probably rely more on established news
organizations simply becayse of the massive swell of low-grade reporting
and information in the system.”

Twitter: “Twitter can no more produce
analysis than a monkey can type out a work of Shakespeare.”

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- By the end of this year, our society will
undergo a most peculiar form of societal change -- and it will involve a
lot of strife and conflict. The cause? Google (GOOG) Glasses.

Google
Glasses will impact societal behavior from the moment they arrive. As soon
as you see them, you're aware that you might be filmed. People don't like
being filmed.

Yes, every smartphone can record you and take pictures. But
you know when this is happening. It isn't a constant feeling that everyone
around you is filming you from every angle. You see them when they do
it.

Google Glasses are different. More than just photos and filming, what
happens to this data?

Let's say that I'm standing behind the counter
at a business establishment -- bank, fast-food restaurant, airline check-in
counter, whatever. My Google Glasses might display the social security
number, the general rap sheet, social media appearances, and so on, of the
person in front of me.

Perhaps that's a good thing. Some people will
think it's creepy, though. Can you imagine the bar scene when people start
wearing Google Glasses? Within a second or two, you will have all available
information about the person in front of you. Some of that information may
not be so flattering.

Public places will have to come up with new
policies. Hotels, airports, restaurants, gyms and schools will want some say
in whether you are allowed to wear these Google Glasses on their premises.
You can just hear the panic buttons after the first pictures from people
cheating in school or filming in the locker room are released on YouTube.
Conflicts about are certain to get very ugly.

Other dimensions
immediately appear. What if future versions of Google Glasses are very
difficult to detect in terms of looking different from regular
glasses?

What happens when you walk into an establishment today wielding
a video camera in the faces of the staff? In a restaurant, a bank lobby, or
a gym? You will be asked to turn that thing off, and if you don't obey
quickly, you will be escorted from the premises.

Google Glasses will
make all social/public interaction highly awkward. You're on YouTube
everywhere you go. A few short months after their introduction, Google
Glasses could already be so widespread that you will be on camera once you
stick your nose out your front door.

Privacy lawyers, saddle
up!

The Google Glasses data captured in the form of pictures and videos
will not only be used by the person wearing the glasses. The person
capturing the images may want to "auto-tag" these media with the identities
of the people in the picture/video.

Some people prefer to stay off
the grid. They pay cash, they drive a car without GPS, they don't have a
cell phone, and they're not members of online social networks. They have
been able to stay out of most publicly available databases.

Once a
meaningful percentage of people start walking down the street wearing Google
Glasses, not so much. There will be no place to hide -- unless the
government legislates Google Glasses, or private establishments decide to
ban them.

What about Google itself?

Google Glasses will be the
critical ingredient in the personal information arms race of the (soon to
arrive) future. If other people wear them, why shouldn't I? I predict that
everyone with means will rush to obtain them, especially as the price falls
from $1,500 to $1,000 to $500 and eventually below, over the first two
years.

If Google succeeds in bringing these kinds of glasses to market
before key competitors, most notably Apple (AAPL), but also Microsoft
(MSFT), the advantage could prove to be decisive. Google already has a 70%
smartphone market share with Android, so it's pretty much already there,
but don't forget the Microsoft's market share in the PC business was
close to 95% until only a few short years ago.

Seeing as Google is
likely to engineer some sort of tie-in between the Glasses and Android
smartphones, the Glasses should be a tremendous boon for Android. Anyone
looking at their iPhone would have to seriously consider
switching.

Google Glasses may cause societal chaos, but they will be
great for Google's finances.

At the time of submitting this article,
the author was long GOOG and AAPL, and short MSFT.

Follow
@antonwahlman

(6) Drones over there, total surveillance over
here

The massive surveillance system built up over the last 10 years is
the domestic companion of overseas drone killings.

The
big story buried in all the commentary about the US government's drone
policy is that the old algorithm of the liberal state no longer works.
Focusing on drones is almost a distraction, if it weren't for the number of
men, women and children they have killed in only a few years. What we should
focus on is the deeper condition that enables the drone policy, and so much
more, and that is the sharp increase in unaccountable executive power, no
matter what party is in power.

The 1960s and the 1970s saw the making of
laws that called for the executive branch of government to be more
responsive to basic principles of a division of power and accountability to
citizens. Many of its owners were curtailed by the legislative. With Reagan,
Clinton and especially Bush-Cheney, many of these laws were violated under
the claim of a state of exception due to the "War on Terror".

What we
are facing is a profound degradation of the liberal state. Drone killings
and unlawful imprisonment are at one end of that spectrum of degradation,
and the rise of the power, economic destructions and unaccountability of the
financial sector are at the other end.

The massive surveillance apparatus
built up over the last 10 years is the domestic companion of the overseas
drone killings. It is one outcome of this deep decay of the liberal state.
While much is not known about either, we know enough to recognise its
potential for enormous abuse. What is known is that there are at least
10,000 buildings across the US, with a massive concentration in Washington,
DC, engaged in ongoing surveillance of all of us residing in the territory
of the US. Surveillance and counter-terrorism activities employ about one
million professionals with top level secret clearance. One estimate has it
that every day over two billion emails are tracked. And on and on along
these lines.

The basic logic of such a surveillance system is that
for our security as citizens we are all being surveilled, or potentially so.
That is to say, the logic of the system is that we must all be considered
suspect in a first step in order to ensure our safety. Who, then, have we
the citizens become, or turned into? Are we the new colonials?

The
source of this excess of executive power is a foundational distortion at the
heart of the liberal state. The liberal state was never meant to bring
equality of opportunity and full recognition of all members of the polity.
Inequality was at its core since its beginning - between owners of the means
of production and those who only had their labour to sell in the market. But
even so, the so-called Keynesian period throughout much of the west
engendered a prosperous working class and an expanding modest middle class.
It was a partial democratising of the economy. In the 1980s, this began to
disintegrate.

In the 2000s, just about all liberal democracies were in
sharp decline, with growing inequality, weakened unions, impoverishment of
the modest middle classes, and an enormous capture of the country's profits
by the top layer of firms and households. This is all captured in a couple
of numbers found in the US census: In 1979, the top 1 percent of earners in
New York City received 12 percent of all the compensation to workers in
the city, a reasonable level of inequality in a complex economy such as
is NYC. (This share excludes non-compensation sources of wealth, such as
capital gains, inheritance, etc.) In 2009, the top 1 percent received 44
percent - a level of inequality that cannot be good for the city's
economy.

At its most extreme, this combination of massive surveillance
and savage inequality may be signalling a new phase in the long history of
liberal democracies, one where the executive branch gains power partly
through its increasingly international activities. Over the last 20 years
and more, this incipient internationalism has been deployed in support of
developing a global economy and fighting the "War against Terrorism";
thus the big-bank bailout is not so much a "return of the strong
nationalist state" as some would have it, but rather the use by the
executive branch of national law and national taxpayers' money to rescue
a global financial system.

This is a kind of internationalism. Pity
it is being deployed for this. It is possible that these new international
capabilities of the executive branch might be reoriented to more worthy aims
- climate change, global hunger, global poverty and many others requiring
new types of internationalisms.

Saskia Sassen is Robert S Lynd
professor of sociology, and co-chairs the Committee on Global Thought,
Columbia University. She is the author of Cities in a World Economy;
Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages; A
Sociology of Globalization (Contemporary Society Series) and
others.

Follow her on Twitter: @SaskiaSassen

The views expressed
in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al
Jazeera's editorial policy.

About Me

'Mission statement'.
I am convinced that jewish individuals and groups have an enormous influence on the world. The MSM are, for almost all people, the only source of information, and these are largely controlled by jewish people.
So there is a huge under-reporting on jewish influence in the world.
I see it as my mission to try to close this gap. To quote Henry Ford: "Corral the 50 wealthiest jews and there will be no wars." `(Thomas Friedman wrote the same in Haaretz, about the war against Iraq! See yellow marked area, blog 573)
If that is true, my mission must be very beneficial to humanity.